University of Wales - History

History

The University of Wales was founded in Wales in 1893 as a federal university with three foundation colleges: University College Wales (now Aberystwyth University), which had been founded in 1872 and University College North Wales (now Bangor University) and University College South Wales and Monmouthshire (now Cardiff University) which were founded following the Aberdare Report in 1881. Prior to the foundation of the federal university, these three colleges had prepared students for the examinations of the University of London. A fourth college, Swansea (now Swansea University), was added in 1920 and in 1931 the Welsh National School of Medicine was incorporated. In 1967 the Welsh College of Advanced Technology entered the federal university as the University of Wales Institute of Science and Technology (UWIST), also in Cardiff. In 1971 St David's College (now part of the University of Wales: Trinity Saint David), Wales' oldest degree-awarding institution, suspended its own degree-awarding powers and entered the University of Wales. A financial crisis in the late eighties caused UWIST and University College Cardiff to merge in 1988, forming the University of Wales College of Cardiff (UWCC). In 1992 the university lost its position as the only university in Wales when the Polytechnic of Wales became the University of Glamorgan.

The university was composed of colleges until 1996, when the university was reorganised with a two-tier structure of member institutions in order to absorb the Cardiff Institute of Higher Education (which became the University of Wales Institute, Cardiff (UWIC), now known as Cardiff Metropolitan University) and the Gwent College of Higher Education (which became University of Wales College, Newport (UWCN)). The existing colleges became constituent institutions and the two new member institutions became university colleges. In 2003, both of these colleges became full constituent institutions and in 2004 UWCN received permission from the Privy Council to change its name to the University of Wales, Newport.

Cardiff University and the University of Wales College of Medicine (UWCM) merged on 1 August 2004. The merged institution, known as Cardiff University, ceased to be a constituent institution and joined a new category of 'Affiliated/Linked Institutions'. While the new institution continues to award University of Wales degrees in medicine and related subjects, students joining Cardiff from 2005 to study other subjects are awarded Cardiff University degrees.

At the same time, the university admitted four new institutions. Thus, North East Wales Institute of Higher Education (NEWI), Swansea Institute of Higher Education and Trinity College, Carmarthen (who were all previously Associated Institutions) along with the Royal Welsh College of Music & Drama (which was previously a Validated Institution) were admitted as full members of the university on 27 July 2004.

The Royal Welsh College of Music & Drama subsequently left the university in January 2007. More changes followed in September 2007 when the university changed from a federal structure to a confederation of independent institutions, allowing those individual institutions which had gained the status of universities in their own right to use the title of university – these institutions are Aberystwyth University, Bangor University, Glyndŵr University (formerly the North East Wales Institute of Higher Education (NEWI)), Swansea Metropolitan University and Swansea University.

In November 2008, Aberystwyth, Bangor and Swansea Universities decided to exercise their right to register students to study for their own awarded degrees.

In February 2011, plans were announced to transform the University of Wales into a new super-university by merging the University of Wales Institute Cardiff, Swansea Metropolitan University and Trinity Saint David. In June 2011, a report commissioned by the Welsh Assembly Government said the university had become too reliant on income from validating degrees awarded by overseas colleges. It recommended that the University should “change radically”, and that if the planned merger did not go ahead then it should either be reduced to a service provider for the rest of the Welsh higher education sector, or wound down completely. In the same month, the university was advised by the Quality Assurance Agency to review its partnerships with foreign colleges following an investigation by BBC Wales which suggested shortcomings in its system of validation.

An investigation by the BBC in October 2011 suggested that its validation program was being used to fraudulently offer degrees, to allow students to get visas to work in Britain. The uncovering of fraudulent practices in private colleges attempting to usurp UK immigration and regulations was a matter which the University took very seriously, informing both the UK Border agency and the police, strongly rejecting the accusation of its involvement.

In October 2011, the University made the decision to adopt a new academic strategy and to withdraw its current validation model in response to changes in higher education in Wales, including the University's merger with Swansea Metropolitan University and the University of Wales: Trinity Saint David.